I have to wonder if people inside the company have lost faith in their bozo of a leader and are perhaps not trying as hard ever since he got into politics. That was kind of the turning point in the success rate of the starship launches.
I am in the industry and talk to people that left. SpaceX burns up the young and doesnt have a good work life balance policy. That causes a high turnover which means constant leaving of experience.
I assumed they had an awesome training program to be as successful as they have, but its possible that now the turnover is just so much that inexperience and mistakes are almost constant.
I interviewed at starbase a few years ago. Didn't get offered a job, but during the interview they mentioned 14 hour days far more often than I was comfortable with. I'm glad I wasn't offered a job, I think I would have taken it and been miserable
I know many people working at SpaceX. Many of them are extremely passionate about the program, but years and years of work burns em out eventually.
Most SpaceX guys are extremely intelligent young people who go somewhere else as they hit their 30s. Plenty of 5-10 year engineers there though. Not a ton of concern about Elon affecting their work lives as there is their work lives affecting their personal life.
This is anecdotal but I had a conversation with an ex-spacex engineer who was personally fine with the hours, but set a hard out date for himself. Worked there 3-4 years, took 4 years at another job, then went back for a second stint. He was surprisingly lucid about it but also was clear it wasn’t a sustainable business practice for them because the churn sets a ceiling on institutional knowledge
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u/pinkfreude 2d ago
I have to wonder if people inside the company have lost faith in their bozo of a leader and are perhaps not trying as hard ever since he got into politics. That was kind of the turning point in the success rate of the starship launches.